Greece turns to lignite

Greece’s electricity market operator LAGIE published this week the country’s latest renewable energy statistics concerning the first four months of 2015. According to LAGIE’s report, Greece installed 7 MW of new photovoltaics from January to April. Specifically, all new installations were added in January and February, while in March and April there was no installation activity at all.

At the end of April, Greece had a cumulative photovoltaic capacity of 2.603 GW, dispersed among 2.228 GW of ground mounted installations and 375 MW of rooftop PV systems.

This week’s LAGIE statistics have disappointed the Greek PV industry who is now preparing for the worst. This is Greece’s policy U-turn towards lignite.

The new government’s policy shift away from renewable energies “is very clear” said Psomas. “All [the new government] is concerned with is how to promote power generation from fossil fuels e.g. new lignite power stations, new gas pipes and explanatory drilling for oil. So far, it has shown no interest at all for renewables energy” Psomas added.